


Talishae

by Kastaka



Category: Maelstrom LARP
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 05:43:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10780761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kastaka/pseuds/Kastaka
Summary: Compilation of Talishae fic from lrpdrabbles LJ





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First part of 100 Words challenge.

001\. Beginnings.

Day. Night. Day. Night. Day. Night.

Pain.

Collapsing in on herself. Small creatures scattering. No, not that small. Or was she just shrunk? Uprooting herself. The gleam of axes.

Running.

002\. Middles. 

Stupidity, they said. Walked straight in. Told them she was a necromancer. No need to mourn.

Carefully she discussed with the other trees. Calmly, she retrieved what was left, the leaf-shaped daggers, the sigil, the paperwork.

There was no-one quite like Nimrodel, and the world was ending.

003\. Ends. 

She boarded the ship at the port in New Mill'en. It was made of wood, of course. She'd learned not to notice these things.

The paper was made of wood, too. As was the pencil she wrote with. There was a long time in which to write, which was good, because there was an awful lot that needed writing. She finished the first copy just as they were entering the storm.

She wasn't sure what she was expecting, but she was pretty sure it wasn't this. Light and thunder and then nothing. The world here was alive, obviously alive, but also (subtly, at a level below what she would normally consider) it was dead.

Her thoughts had little time to gather, however. There were copies to be made, she had promised to pass her knowledge on, and then there was a strange and alien shore that the Teacher had commended her to.

004\. Insides. 

The snake was bruised and battered, staggering back to the camp wounded from the battle, winded from its excursions. It wasn't leaking everywhere - wasn't dying - but it wasn't fighting any more today either.

"I hear you're a healer," it said. "Can you get me back in the fight?"

She was rather taken aback. When she had first awoken she had considered herself a healer, but nobody of her tribe would give out their true name for something as trivial as mending a little damage.

"...sure."

005\. Outsides.

She stood amongst the trees. Wasps on one side. Fidelians on the other. Somehow she'd stopped them from killing each other quite yet. Or maybe they'd stopped themselves. It was hard to tell how much influence she really had, with her information and her quiet persistence. Probably it was really the Commissar's doing.

They were standing in a circle, the bright ones, the gem people. They frustrated her immensely. They made overtures of friendship, vague stillborn promises of sharing their wealth of knowledge and understanding, but they met in a huddle and those not of their kind were not welcome.

With the strides she'd made with the dryads, she'd hoped they might reciprocate, but instead they were secretive as ever and the other dryads muttered darkly about how they should guard their secrets just as well.

006\. Hours.

"Noon, in the tavern."

"Five o'clock, in the stand of trees in the middle of the bottom field."

"It's changed to three now, talismancer's meeting clashed."

"Two o'clock, we'll gather up the benches."

"I can come along for the first hour, but then I've got to dash off to the sorcerer's meeting."

Always running from one thing to the next. If only all her responsibilities slotted neatly into hours.

007\. Days. 

"How do I get in touch with you?"

Explaining the messenger birds. A look of incredulity. Explaining them again.

Trying to copy down the 'tech tree', trying to memorise it before the piece of paper is taken away, no money, no currency but days.

It isn't much like a tree. Once she was paid some money, but she lost it.

"Have you got Minor Genesis? Can I swap you Sacred Hands of Life?"

008\. Weeks. 

Once she grew some trees. They tore themselves out of the ground around the place that was still called Nimrodel's Grove. They soared up to the heavens. They were beautiful.

She can still remember the running and the screaming and the blood on the ground, as her beautiful children hoisted her brothers and sisters in the tribe high into the air, impaling them on sudden branches, tossing them like dry leaves into the clear sky.

There was a lot of talk about improving the forests, but she never grew trees again.

009\. Months. 

"How old are you?"

"Three months."

She had come into the world without vast stores of knowledge, it was true, but she had never felt inclined to be stupid like some of the other trees. The snakes had known what to do with a dryad, having had Nimrodel as an example for some time. They had taught her to speak well and to keep her eyes open.

For some reason the inner islanders all expressed surprise and were impressed when she told them her age. She didn't count the endless days and nights before her Awakening, of course. Those were receding now in any case, a time before thought, less than a dream.

"How old are you?"

"Coming up to a year now."

010\. Years.

When he said he was several hundred years old she wasn't inclined to believe him.

There were advantages, she supposed, to the lie. She just wished he wouldn't keep maintaining it in front of the other dryads, as if he was really walking the earth for that long, as if he had some special wisdom they did not. It was a trait of the devoted, she supposed, to have this need to convince other people their way was right.

She did often try to convince people she was right, but it was different. She was right, factually, in such circumstances. It was not a matter of belief or of the philosophy one might subscribe to. She only advised people on factual matters or concerns of basic survival.

But every time that he claimed that he was several hundred years old she wanted him to be right, so she could have some way to abdicate responsibility, someone older and wiser to follow.


	2. Chapter 2

011\. Red. 

The Iridescent Lady, they called her, and she was as fascinated with the Awakened as all dragons seemed to be. Talishae sat on a stool in front of her in the house of Karion Darkclaw and patiently answered her questions as they came.

There was a lot of time after that where she and the red brood were friends. Their tent was a useful sanctuary, a place she could guarantee would be well guarded while she needed to wait for the troubles of the world - well, usually the troubles of the Teca Tribe - to pass her by.

Eidolons often went to speak to the Lady, but none could discern her faith. It was an odd counterpoint - she loved power, like any dragon, and schemed incessantly to achieve it, but as for her own brood she wanted them to be free. At least in this matter.

There was a mystery there, but it wasn't one that Talishae had time to discern the truth of.

012\. Orange. 

Firelight. Ashes glowing orange. She sat around many fires. They asked her all the usual questions.

"Be careful you don't catch fire."

Actually, she informed them calmly, dryads are less likely to catch fire from a loose spark than, say, wemics. Or your clothing. Think of green, living wood. Does that catch easily? No. Only in the kind of circumstances where you would be horribly burnt. Obviously I wouldn't go and stand in a fire.

"Don't you feel bad about burning your siblings?"

She had a stock answer to this one. "Do you eat meat?" Most of them did, and those who didn't know that they are exceptions and not the rule. "If you eat the animals, who are fast and show signs of pain, why should we not use wood, from trees which are slow and show no such awareness?"

It was a false answer, but it kept her alive and warm on cold nights, so it served her well.

013\. Yellow. 

She was always terribly embarrassed about it afterwards.

The creatures looked like snakes, except where they didn't quite look like her tribe. They had feathers and they smiled too much. And they were talking to the hosts of the event who had let the undead walk freely around, which didn't seem like a good idea to her.

She'd even brought in a theurge to check them out, but it didn't convince her. The awful premonitions of dread wouldn't go away.

"They're just a different tribe," they told her afterwards. "They follow the Jaguar."

She was convinced, but there was some part of her that remained wary. Those snakes were *wrong*.

014\. Green. 

Almost everything was green, if you thought about it.

Leaves. Grass. Many ophidians. Some mould. The occasional facet.

She had introduced herself to him in her ongoing quest to unite the Awakened. He had his people shelter hwer when they came for the Teca Tribe.

Sometimes you just had to be grateful for small mercies.

When she was sure they were gone she crept out the back and straight into the Flembic colony magic meeting. She thought she heard the laughter of the Jaguar amongst the trees.

015\. Blue.

The new dragon was blue. She sat in a chair outside his room while the sun went down, talking history with one of his dracoscions.

She did not notice the irony of a year-old tree describing the finer points of centuries-old history to a century-old dragon-scaled man. There was information, and she was sharing it. What could be better?

Her only regret was that she never got to meet the dragon. She would have liked a better association than that charlatan Balthazar for the colour blue.

Blue skies, and all the world ahead of her to explore.

016\. Purple. 

Purple was the colour of kings. Purple was the colour of queens.

Purple was the colour of the bruises on the young lady's face, as they dragged her out of the darkness together so that the surgeon would attend to her.

They watched as the lady surgeon healed her, magic and money in a dazzling show to complement her skilled hands. Then they went back into the woods. There were still many things to discuss, beneath the shroud of twilight and forest.

017\. Brown. 

The world is dying, they say. Everything is twice as difficult as it used to be. And someone's been taking the power, without consulting the others.

There's only one way to find out. She finds a suitable tree. Puts a hand on each bifurcation of its slim trunk. And closes her eyes.

The festival is all around her, but it is also so very, very far away. She is away, away in a different time and a different frame of reference. Her mind flows out amongst the trees, her consciousness dispersing among the forest. Coherant, but spread far and wide, she asks of the forest - how are you? Who have you been speaking to?

The forest is weak, but not dangerously so. She gets a face, but they turn out to have the best of reasons to call on the forest's power.

And the world is dying, but slowly, and by parts, and maybe no more than it always has been.

018\. Black. 

Karion Darkclaw was her first dragon.

It seemed almost preposterous to say it like that, but there it was. Maybe it was the rumours that the Awakened were immortal. Maybe it was the age of trees resounding through the still-young minds that newly inhabited some of them.

Maybe it was just that they might turn out to be valuable, and it cost the dragons little to humour them.

He offered her a place in his family, but she had a family of her own, so he merely extended his welcome. His scions seemed equally charmed by her, and they all shared freely of the mysteries of the past.

Maybe after so many hundreds of years it was just refreshing to find something so new.

019\. White. 

Kalipet had always lain slightly beyond Talishae's comprehension.

She understood the Serpent, as much as anyone did. And she understood the Basilisk, as Nimrodel had taught her. And she understood Jaguar, both sides of Jaguar, as Thorn and the Lower City and the man in the dark who had given her strong drink and taken her scouting out the target of his next murder had shown her. And no-one understood the Coyote.

And she understood Waspor, who had to be placated lest he lay waste to the world. And she understood Ant, who bid his followers be strong and eliminate the weakness from amongst them. And she thought she understood Unicorn, who was about looking after each other and playing to your strengths, who punished them on the night that Corundum almost died, and the new dryad she had barely got to know did.

But she still didn't understand Kalipet. Why was she with the Teca? Why did she pray as she did?

Why didn't she get a second dagger?

020\. Colourless.

"Sweet, clear syrup."

The Fidelian was a pitiful sight, choked with need and rage, supported by his comrades. She spotted Thorn in the midst of a crowd of law enforcement and fell in beside him.

"You'll provide a character reference, won't you?"

She'd heard the rumours, of course. Rumours were her speciality. But she didn't think they were true. She didn't think the big tree would do such stupid things as were attributed to him. Nearly the same things, done in a different light and with a more charitable intent, certainly. But not those things.

"Did you drink it on purpose?"

Of course he did. No unarmed dryad was going to somehow tie him down and force the blessing down the wildman's throat. Thankfully, he tells the truth.


	3. Chapter 3

021\. Friends. 

Talishae made it her business to ensure everyone, as far as possible, would consider themselves her friend.

Friends tell you things they think you might find useful. Friends have tents to hide you from the angry mob. Friends have fires to warm the night air and chase the dark shadows away. Friends are much less likely to turn around and kill you.

It wasn't just survival. She genuinely enjoyed the company of almost anyone. With the world so new to her, every tale was a new and interesting piece of the puzzle, every life story fascinating, mere idle conversation a beautiful mystery in words.

Almost every person was fantastic and unique and worthwhile.

022\. Enemies. 

Except for those who hurt her friends.

Not all of them, of course. Many of them had their reasons. Minor battles, petty thievery, those she could forgive. But there were some things which one should never do.

The worst offense, in her lexicon of offenses, was deception that led to innocent blood spilled by innocent hands.

She stood over his body, understanding that there was no way that she could defend him, that she was helpless before the assembled armies and that even his own dracoscions, far better armed and armoured than her, hadn't been able to save him. Beyond all that, she barely knew him.

They pulled the surgeon off him and he bled out beneath her feet.

She didn't blame the soldiers. She didn't blame the rabble. She knew who she blamed for this travesty.

023\. Lovers. 

"In the name of the Weaver I pronounce you man and wife! Um, tree. Wife. Whatever."

The jokes were endless, of course, but having a husband was really quite useful. It helped that he was an honourable man when he wasn't throwing up the night's excesses on his hands and knees. It helped that he had valuable skills that she very much appreciated having on call.

"I can recognise your laugh from halfway across the field."

She didn't know much about love, but she was always glad to see him, and she thought the same was true in reverse. It was strange how such a chance meeting would prove to work out so well.

She kept the hat. It helped people find her, and when she took it off, it helped her to hide.

024\. Family. 

She was a child in the tribe until she left them. If she returned, she would still be a child.

It was not their choice, but hers. They offered her full membership whenever she felt ready. In later seasons they seemed to have simply forgotten about it. But how could she be anything other than a child, when she had not found her god?

When she finally made that choice, in fear and doubt and haste, and it was more correct than she had the right to hope from such an inauspicious start, how could she tell them? That she had found one of the invader gods, and it suited her more than they could know?

She told Claw, of course, and all of them in the letter that followed her departure. But by then she hardly needed the tribe to validate her adulthood.

025\. Strangers.

She came upon the encampment after she had left the patrol. Sitting on the bank, it took her a moment to work out who she was watching.

"Hey, pretty tree lady," he said. "You look lonely. Mind if I sit with you?"

They had been hunting her, just a few short months ago. They had been hunting her and her people through the festival. The chieftain's daughter had not been fast enough.

"No, not at all," she answered, cheerfully, conversationally. "What's your name?"

She didn't remember the first part. The second part confirmed her suspicions.

"Aren't you chilly out here?"

He led her into the tent, through his family, some of whom she was sure must recognise her from the time she tried to recruit their golem, or the time she stood by Kalipet as they argued some kind of arcane point in a deal over money and food.

"Help yourself."

She ate their food. She drank their wine. What else was a pretty tree lady to do?

026\. Comrades. 

Seraph. Golem. Dryad. They go from camp to camp, shining the light of the gods into dark places. Sometimes they illuminate something. Hushed voices in the darkness, lowered tones, earnest and placatory. Everyone has a reason. Everyone has an explanation.

Another time, she is in a tent while the chieftain writhes and prophesies on the floor, taking notes in the darkness when the angel comes. The tribe is restless and the angel is restless. The vision quest must not be interrupted. The angel must examine them all.

She emerges for a moment from the tent to smile and reassure him and tell him it's all okay, to tell him in lowered tones, earnest and placatory, perhaps more detail than the tribe would like him to know. He looks once more into the tent, the light of the gods shining forth, but thankfully it illuminates none of them, and he leaves.

027\. Parents. 

She spoke with them, afterwards. They offered to make her stronger. She arranged some teaching. Took back the daggers. Stood by as they negotiated for the body.

The world was ending, and Nimrodel was dead.

Later, she laughed. Ha ha ha, dead of stupidity, served her right. But she knew in her heart she would have done the same. You didn't hold back when saving the world.

The world didn't end. Nimrodel was buried.

She stood on the edge of the ceremony, watching the religious call and respond, call out to their gods for Nimrodel's acceptance into their holy place.

She did not enter. She had no religion.

The cycle of life was what her mentor had spoken of, things in their place, passing on. She inherited some papers and a symbol. Sometimes she took it out and looked at it and cried - not so much for Nimrodel as for the ideal that the symbol had represented, which seemed further away with each passing season.

028\. Children. 

"I have a small army, ten trees, guarding the grove."

There were so many rumours, so few of them true. This dryad hadn't - grown? created? awakened? - her own army, she'd found them. That dryad hadn't grown true dryads, just bushes that ate people, mute guardians of the forest. The other dryad sprouted flowers, but wasn't that just her poison?

The oak wood carried a seed and called it their child. They were not amenable to reason, she already knew that, although frustratingly they showed a hidden cunning that she was sure she could use if only they would not be so superstitious, so easily attached to illogical leaps to nonsensical conclusions.

In a way they were all still children, really. Would a five year old human know how to reproduce? Why should they expect to be any different?

029\. Birth. 

Children of the snakes were born in pain and blood, but they didn't hit the ground running. If in their first moments someone tried to kill them, they would die. They started small, and became big.

Children of the trees were born under the ground, emerging from their seeds in secret, in the dark and quiet places. Their own parents would murder them if they were too close, if they were found before they were ready. Everything would eat them, everything would trample them, everything was an enemy.

Talishae was born in the flash of steel and a panicked flight through the forest, not sure if she was being chased by those who sought to hack her down, shedding wood and leaf until just a core remained, a core of wood with winding ivy shaped like a girl.

She did not like birth. She did not like children. She just wanted to shake them. _Value what you have! Remember what you have lost! Become who you are meant to be!_

030\. Death.

"The report on the Talishae case, sir."

Maybe someone blamed her for the changes in the Heirophant's doctrine, although it had been Focus and Auriel's fault as much as hers. Maybe they had considered her an abomonation, eating away at the heart of the bureaucracy of the Teacher, spreading the lies of Hell within his sacred organisation.

Or maybe they were jealous of the mild-mannered scholar who had come from nowhere to a position they had coveted, who wrote treatises on the Teacher's new favourite subject and filtered wild-eyed rumours drifting back across the vast ocean, back through the accursed storm that had brought her here.

It looked like someone on the inside, someone she'd trusted, although that wasn't much help. She'd trusted easily, been involved in all manner of projects and departments, consulted by many people who could easily have had access to her quarters before she was found neatly sliced and stacked in her fire-basket.

She'd always given him the creeps, anyway. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if the case was never solved.


	4. Mirror

She'd never had much use for mirrors before coming here, but as she straightened her collar and tucked in a stray tendril that was threatening to curl out of her skirt in an unnecessarily disturbing fashion, she wondered how she'd ever done without the things. 

She must have looked a frightful sight back then, 'dressed' in the shed skin of her tribemates, all unkempt and unpruned. It was surprising how she had been well received at all with such obvious marks of disorder upon her. 

Never mind - she wouldn't make such a mistake again. Nowadays she was always impeccably dressed, determined to prove that even one raised as a savage could learn proper order in dress and style. 

She fussed with her neckline for a moment longer, then headed out satisfied to face the endless paperwork, the petty bureaucracy that unavoidably followed the rather ambitious attempt to order the world's affairs, and all the other inevitable trials of the day.


End file.
